f Harry Crews and Katherine Dunn had ripped off each others' clothes in some back alley one late night, their illegitimate love child would likely grow up to write a book of stories very much like Nancy Rommelmann.

This summer, I found myself re-reading Alice Walker's The Color Purple, a book that is both wonderful and awful. After finishing, I asked myself, "Why do some books by great authors (or parts of books by great authors) work so well, while others fail?"